NEW ORLEANS (USATODAY.com)  It was a weary President Bush who Thursday night slowly walked alone in the dark across the Louis Armstrong Airport tarmac and boarded Air Force One for the two-hour flight back to Washington. It would be well past midnight before he got home.

Bush had just made his speech to the nation pledging to lead the massive effort to rebuild the Gulf Coast region in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and repair and rehabilitate the lives of its residents. And, as soon as the kliegs that lit up the St. Louis Cathedral backdrop for the president's nationally televised speech had gone out, Democrats were telling the news media how inadequate they thought it was.

But the president, after a busy week, could not look forward to a relaxing Friday like so many of us do. He had to lead a Day of Prayer and Remembrance for storm victims in Washington's National Cathedral and then get back to the White House for a meeting and news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

There is a world bigger than the Gulf Coast region that our presidents have to worry about no matter what calamities strike at home. We just tend to forget it.

Consider Bush's week just passed.

It began on Sunday, the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush went to church and observed a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House.

He then flew to New Orleans to check on rescue and cleanup efforts, overnighting on the USS Iwo Jima docked on the Mississippi riverfront downtown.

On Monday, Bush toured the near-deserted city and its suburbs, and then flew to Gulfport-Biloxi, Miss., for more of the same before going home.

On Tuesday, Bush shifted gears and turned to his other big problem, the war in Iraq. He met at the White House with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and held a joint news conference with him.

Then, he dashed off to New York City for late-afternoon meetings at the United Nations with Chinese President Hu Jintao and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Overnighting in New York, Bush was up early Wednesday for his annual address to the world body's General Assembly, followed by more meetings with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

But the day was not over. Back in Washington, he visited a Jewish synagogue and spoke at an evening dinner marking 350 years of Jewish life in America.

On Thursday, the day of the speech in New Orleans, Bush first flew to Mississippi, where he toured a Pascagoula oil refinery idled by the storm.

Then it was off to New Orleans for the big speech.

We Americans ask and expect a lot from our presidents. And then, no matter what they do or how hard they work in our behalf, at least half of us are generally unhappy. And we make our feelings known through a news media only too eager to air our grievances.

Of course, there are times when we rally behind our chief executive. Usually it is in times of war — as long as the war is not too long, doesn't get too messy and not too many Americans get killed.

Then, we are back to what has become equilibrium in early 21st century American politics — sharply divided mostly by political party and nasty in the expression of our divisions.

Hurricane Katrina, probably the worst natural disaster to hit this country, at first blush appeared to be one of those dramatic events in the course of history where the nation comes together behind its leader. But not this time.

Instead of our political leaders standing up, saying we are all in this together and we will do whatever it takes to overcome it, opponents of the president appear to be angling themselves for political gain by bashing his leadership.

And we are back at equilibrium: sharply divided by party, strident in our criticism and unwilling to concede that the presidency is a tough job for any man or woman who takes it on.